


Insomnia

by circlique



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Love, Gen, Insomnia, Nationverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 21:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12328890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circlique/pseuds/circlique
Summary: Without the sleep pills, Yong Soo, too, would be kept awake by the flashes of the many lives he could no longer feel, disembodied voices of citizens that were his, but weren’t, the intense magnetic pull of a part of his country he would never be able to reach. It tugged at the empty part of him whenever he found himself in a moment of quiet, but never more than when he was alone in the dark, trying to get sleep to lift him away into the darkness. It was a problem uniquely theirs, and Yong Soo was quite possibly the only person who understood enough to be sympathetic.





	Insomnia

**Author's Note:**

> I've always had a headcanon that the Koreas would be insomniacs as a result of their division, but I've never really explored it much until now. Please enjoy some brother dynamics with a touch of angst.

A knock at the door at this hour couldn’t be good.

The week of conferences had only just begun. Yong Soo had arrived in New York earlier that afternoon, after boarding a flight that had left Seoul nearly a day ago. After 17 hours in a cramped plane cabin, he was exhausted and looking forward to getting a decent night’s rest. Alfred had pulled out all the stops for this one, renting out one of New York’s finest hotels for the annual World Conference. It had taken all of Yong Soo’s willpower to keep from flopping down on the luxurious bed, with its gleaming white sheets and down stuffed pillows, and forgetting the rest of the world the moment he’d walked in. Instead, he’d forced himself to find something to do until later that night so he could adjust to the time change.

It was now nearly 10pm. He was in the bathroom, about to take a dose of sleep pills, when the sound of knuckles rapping on his door had filled the little hallway next to the bathroom. Only emergencies come knocking on doors at 10pm.

With a sigh, he went to answer the door—and immediately wished he hadn’t.

Yong Soo’s heart sank into his stomach at the sight of the last person in the world he wanted to see. His twin stood just beyond the threshold of the doorway, wearing a loose-fitting shirt and sweat pants, the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced than ever. He did not look up at Yong Soo even after he’d stood in the doorway in silence for several uncomfortably long seconds.

“What do you want?” Yong Soo growled at last, his fingers tightening around the edge of the door.

“You know what I want,” Sang Kyu grumbled, continuing to glare elsewhere.

Yong Soo did, in fact, know what Sang Kyu was there for, and he had half a mind not to give it to him.

“Why should I help you?” Yong Soo demanded, keeping his voice low though he wanted so badly to yell at Sang Kyu to go away.

Sang Kyu met Yong Soo’s eyes with an icy look. “It’s in your interest for both of us to be in a good mood tomorrow.”

“But you’re never in a good mood,” Yong Soo shot back.

“And why do you think that is?” Sang Kyu asked sardonically, the words bitter.

Yong Soo knew the answer to this as well. Without the sleep pills, Yong Soo, too, would be kept awake by the flashes of the many lives he could no longer feel, the disembodied voices of citizens that were his, but weren’t, the intense magnetic pull of a part of his country he would never be able to reach. It tugged at the empty part of him whenever he found himself in a moment of quiet, but never more than when he was alone in the dark, trying to get sleep to lift him away into the darkness. It was a problem uniquely theirs, and Yong Soo was quite possibly the only person who understood enough to be sympathetic.

Some part of him wanted to curse Sang Kyu to that misery tonight, but at the same time, having to deal with a North Korea cranky from jet lag and lack of sleep in the morning would be far worse than swallowing a small bit of pride tonight.

Yong Soo glowered at Sang Kyu from behind the door, but after moment, he finally said, “What’s the magic word?”

“South, just give me the damn pills.”

“I want to hear you say it!”

“South!”

“That’s not it. Try again!”

Sang Kyu gritted his teeth, clearly weighing the options in his head. Suck up some pride, or suffer through the insomnia? Finally, he bit back whatever insult he’d been working up and looked at Yong Soo with a begrudging look of defeat.

“Please,” he mumbled, barely loud enough for Yong Soo to hear.

Well, Yong Soo doubted he’d be able to get him to say it a second time, so he decided it was good enough. He had better things to do than stand in the doorway all night trying to get Sang Kyu to beg him. Like sleep. He slipped back behind the door for a moment, grabbed the bottle of pills, then returned to the doorway and shoved it at Sang Kyu.

“Goodnight,” he jeered, only realizing what a grave mistake he’d made after the door was shut.

Damn it. He hadn’t even taken his own dose yet, but in his haste to be rid of his disowned brother he’d given him the whole bottle. He didn’t have a spare. If he didn’t get it back, he’d spend every night this week tossing and turning.

Sheepishly, he returned to the door and opened it a crack. It had been less than a minute, so Sang Kyu had not made it far down the hall. The sound of the door opening caused him to turn and look over his shoulder.

Yong Soo glared at him for a moment before calling after him, his wavering voice betraying his embarrassment.

“So, you know I’m not giving you the whole bottle right? Take what you need and give it back.”

To his dismay, Sang Kyu seemed to pick up right away on the fact that giving him the whole bottle had been a mistake. He glanced at the bottle label, then looked up at Yong Soo with a wry smile.

“And what if I don’t?”

Yong Soo wracked his brain for a good threat, but came up empty handed. The best response he had was the one Sang Kyu had given him before.

“You said we should both be in a good mood tomorrow.”

“You seem to manage to be in an annoyingly good mood even without sleep.”

“Stealing my stuff is going to put me in a great mood, North!” Yong Soo said, his voiced edged with sarcasm.

“I didn’t steal it. You gave it to me,” Sang Kyu pointed out, holding up the bottle smugly.

Yong Soo seethed quietly, but could come up with no good reply that might make his stupid brother want to give back the bottle.

Except...

“Give it back and I’ll buy you lunch tomorrow,” he muttered after a long moment, knowing his brother rarely turned down an offer of free food.

This did seem to pique Sang Kyu’s interest, as he took a step toward Yong Soo as if to accept the offer before quickly pulling back. “How do I know you’ll uphold that promise if I give it back now?”

“I’ll give you twenty bucks and you can buy it yourself,” Yong Soo replied bitterly, hating himself for now giving his brother much more in one night than he had ever intended.

Sang Kyu seemed to consider this for a moment, then decided it was good enough.

“Fine,” he said, and began to make his way back toward the room. Yong Soo left the door ajar, an unspoken invitation to enter for a minute while he searched for his wallet.

Sang Kyu quickly made himself at home on the bed, settling down to read the label of the bottle.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Yong Soo grunted as he bent down to look through his backpack for the wallet.

“Then hurry up,” Sang Kyu retorted, eyeing Yong Soo as he opened pocket after pocket, and what should have been a quick search began to drag on.

“You’re lucky America even let you into the country,” Yong Soo replied distractedly, as he checked yet another pocket of his backpack.

Surely he hadn’t actually _lost_ his wallet, right? He was sure he’d had it when he’d arrived. The most logical place for it to be was his backpack, since that was where he’d kept it for most of the flight. But several minutes of searching every pocket turned up nothing, so he moved on to his suitcase, thinking maybe he’d tossed it in there after arriving.

Behind him, he heard the jostling of pills against the sides of the bottle as Sang Kyu counted out a week’s worth. It seemed unlikely that Sang Kyu would have been able to find and steal his wallet in the few minutes he’d been in the room without Yong Soo noticing, but the frantic beating of his heart as he grew more desperate in his search left him looking for someone to blame.

“I told you stealing my stuff would put me in a bad mood,” Yong Soo said, turning to throw an accusing glare in Sang Kyu’s direction.

“Don’t blame me for you not keeping track of your things,” Sang Kyu replied, throwing his hands behind his head lazily.

“Give it back,” Yong Soo said flatly.

“I didn’t take your damn wallet,” Sang Kyu said defensively. “I’ve been here the whole time.”

Despite wanting to believe that Sang Kyu had somehow stolen his wallet, the better part of Yong Soo knew he couldn’t have. Indeed, he’d been on the bed the whole time. Yong Soo kept looking, and _finally_ had a thought to check the pocket of the pants he’d been wearing earlier, and there it was at last. He opened the wallet, pulled out a fresh twenty that he’d gotten at the exchange counter in the airport, and turned to hand it to Sang Kyu.

But Sang Kyu, who must have grown bored and taken one of the pills while he was waiting, was already asleep, his eyes closed and his chest rising and falling softly.

Yong Soo sighed in annoyance. After going through brand after brand of pills and growing immune to all of them, the doctor had moved him up to something stronger. They worked fast, and he knew that trying to wake Sang Kyu up now would just result in him dragging a half-asleep North back to his room. It was more trouble than it was worth.

“I _guess_ you can stay,” Yong Soo grumbled, tired enough now that he was just happy to not have to argue anymore.

He scooped up the stray pills lying next to Sang Kyu’s hand and moved them to the nightstand. The pill bottle, now unguarded, was quickly returned to the bathroom counter. Should he still give him the money? Well, a deal was a deal, and he had a funny suspicion that if he didn’t, Sang Kyu would hold him to it in some way regardless. So, Yong Soo pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and left it on the nightstand next to the pills, then slipped his wallet back into his backpack where it belonged.

A few minutes later, he’d stripped down to his boxers and was trying to slip under the covers without disturbing Sang Kyu, who had fallen asleep on top, when he realized he _still_ hadn’t taken his own dose of the sleep medication. He _could_ try to reach across his brother and grab a pill off the nightstand, but then again…

He was surprised to find that he felt tired enough on his own, sleep already trying to pull him down into the darkness. The voices weren’t there. The flashes of lives across the border had not yet begun to dance in front of his lidded eyes. And most noticeably, the tug toward the part of his country he could never reach—

Was absent.

Presumably because, well, with Sang Kyu a mere foot away, he _could_ reach it.

Yong Soo pulled the covers up to his chin and wrapped them as snugly around himself as he could without disturbing his brother, then turned so that he was facing away from him. It shouldn’t be like this, and the insomnia was the world’s way of telling them so.

The next conscious thought to enter Yong Soo’s mind was that it was far too bright, and he opened his eyes to the sunlight streaming in through the curtains. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep, much less that he’d actually slept through the night without medication.

Sometime during the night, he’d rolled over so that he was facing Sang Kyu, who had rolled so that his back was to Yong Soo. He looked to still be sleeping soundly, and in the warmth and comfort of this rare, peaceful moment, Yong Soo had a thought—

Could he do it without waking his brother? Even if he did wake, Yong Soo could always pretend he’d done it in his sleep, and Sang Kyu would be none the wiser. Slowly, he draped one arm over the other and pulled himself closer, so that the action resembled the closest thing to a loving embrace they’d had together in decades. With a sigh, Yong Soo pressed his forehead into the back of Sang Kyu’s neck, and for a moment they were still, just the rhythmic cycle of their breathing and now synced heartbeats. They could have been kids again, huddled close in their bed and sleeping in late until the sunlight caused the room to grow uncomfortably warm in the humid Korean summer. Sang Kyu never had to know, and that was the worst part of it all—that such a moment could now only be possible if one or the other of them were unconscious.

“I hate what’s become of us,” Yong Soo murmured, letting his eyes drift shut once more.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, but eventually Yong Soo looked up to see what time it was.

“Oh, _shi—”_

Well, it was nice having a brotherly moment with Sang Kyu, but all good things must come to an end. Yong Soo planted his hands on Sang Kyu’s back and, with a rough shove, pushed him over the edge of the bed, where he landed on the floor with a satisfying thud and awoke with a very _un_ satisfied grunt.

“Get up, lazy!” Yong Soo said, leaping out of bed and tearing through his suitcase for proper meeting clothes. “Our meeting starts in ten minutes!”

“Was that necessary?” Sang Kyu growled, his head poking up from behind the bed to glare rather weakly at Yong Soo. It was much harder, Yong Soo noticed, for his brother to look angry when well-rested.

“Yes!” Yong Soo grinned back, pulling on his shirt. “Because unless you want to be late, _you_ still have to go back to your room and get dressed!”

“Whatever,” Sang Kyu said, still trying to look angry, though the look on his face came off as merely annoyed, and perhaps some part amused. “I’ll just be late.”

“Suit yourself,” Yong Soo said, by now tucking his shirt into his pants and throwing a belt through the loops.

Sang Kyu simply rolled his eyes and grabbed his things off the night stand. Without another word, he left, the door swinging shut behind him. Yong Soo could only hope he hadn’t actually been awake to notice what Yong Soo had done or what he’d said.

Nearly twenty minutes later, after Yong Soo had already seated himself in the meeting room with the likes of Russia, China, America, and Japan, North finally saw fit to join them. Though Yong Soo had already noticed that Sang Kyu seemed better rested, it was much more apparent now in the even lighting of the meeting room, the dark circles under his eyes significantly less prominent than they’d been the night before.

“Geez, you took your sweet time this morning, didn’t you?” Alfred complained, his eyes following Sang Kyu as he took his seat between Ivan and Yao. “Do you want to discuss the damn nukes or not?”

“Oh, yes,” Sang Kyu assured him, nonchalantly pulling a file from his briefcase without looking at Alfred. “I can’t wait to listen to you berate me for an hour.”

Beside him, Ivan gave a lighthearted snort.

Alfred seemed much less amused. “Only about forty minutes at this rate,” he muttered. Sang Kyu merely grinned back slyly, causing Alfred to frown and direct his attention to Yao instead, who was assumed to be in charge on Sang Kyu’s side of the table. “Well, where do you want to start?”

“How about ‘hello,’ or ‘good morning?’” Sang Kyu suggested before Yao could even say a word.

“The rest of us did that while we were waiting for _you,_ ” Alfred informed Sang Kyu haughtily.

“Enough,” Yao broke in, raising a hand to silence Sang Kyu, who was clearly gearing up for another retort, and glaring hotly at Alfred, who looked ready to leap across the table. “Good morning, North. Good morning, everyone. I think we all know why we’re here. Since America was so kind as to let me begin, why don’t we start with my proposal from last time?”

Next to Yong Soo, Alfred slowly sank back down into his seat, still glaring daggers at Sang Kyu, who returned his look with a smirk.

When Alfred finally looked away, Sang Kyu’s eyes fell instead on Yong Soo, who must have been staring at him with something like amazement. His brother simply rolled his eyes and smiled knowingly before looking away once more, as if the night before had never happened. Yong Soo couldn’t help but smile a little himself. It was a rare day indeed when North Korea was in a better mood than America.


End file.
